Last week I was contacted by a company, they will remain nameless; they are looking to transform to social. 

They know that this transformation will require new people in the organisation, digital people.

They told me they won't advertise these roles as they don't want their competition to see they are transforming.

Here at DLA Ignite, we see more and more people looking for digital skills and they too are recruiting in stealth mode.

Just think of that.

They know they need to transform to digital and they are commiting budget and resource to it.

As a business you have four choices:-

1.  Hope that the people in your business will somehow come up with a solution

2. Recruit a "digital person" into the business

3. Get outside experts in to help transform your business

4. Do nothing

"Digital Hope"

This seems to be one of the most popular tactics at the moment, which is, hope that the people in your team will work it out.  I know a Venture Capital (VC) person who always fires the marketing team whenever they buy a company.  Seems harsh I know, but they know that a team that is analog and has not come up with a digital solution by 2021, will never come up with a solution.  Which is why they fire them.

Recruit a digital person

A friend of mine's company has just recruited somebody that they think is digital.  When you look at this person they have recruited Linkedin profile, there is nothing that shows that they are digital.  It all feels like the blind leading the blind.  I suspect that two years down the road, the company will realise this was a mistake and suddenly find they are way behind the competition. 

Get in outside experts

Obviously I'm biased, but getting people in that have "seen it and done it" is by the cheapest and quickest way to get started.  After all, you can spend a lot of money and time waiting for your team to figure out digital and waste a lot of time and money waiting for the person who have recruited to make the company be digital, be digital.  With outside experts you can run pilots, so you can see if there is an early ROI (return on investment). 

Do nothing

Of course, do nothing is always an option, I recall talking to a social media manager of a telco.  This social media manager only had 200 followers on Twitter, that is how social media savvy he was.  He said the business had missed the social media bus and so he was going to wait for the next big thing.  Sitting and waiting is always an option. 

My advice is that this strategy not to go digital is communicated to the staff and ratified at the Board. 

So who's social selling?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling?  Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind” 

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.

Here at DLA Ignite we don't do "hints and tips sessions" we don't want you to waste your money. Our social selling and influence methodology will provide your sales team with the stable platform for growth. It is also the only social selling program based on 70:20:10 change management principles which gives your business the mindset change and habit change they need in this digital world.